HACKER Q&A
📣 the-mitr

How do you keep a track of books you are reading?


(or have read or are planning to read in the future.)


  👤 brudgers Accepted Answer ✓
The books I am reading are around here someplace...though I am getting better at putting them back in a bookshelf when I am not reading them.

Or they're in Books (usually locally stored) on my iPhone.

There are no books, I am planning to read except when a copy is still a shipment. Basically, when I hear about a book, I look into acquiring it. If it is infeasible to acquire, I let it go, because I already have shelves (physical and virtual) of books I am reading -- a not-trivial fraction of I might not ever finish both because I don't get around to it and because really good books are reread.

My operating theory is that there are many many more books I would like to read than I will ever spend time reading. So I go with the moment rather than creating wishlists. YMMV. Good luck.


👤 bananarchist
Books I’m actively reading are scattered across tables and desks throughout the house, or in the most recent section on my book applications, so that’s easy.

Books I haven’t read are on my bookshelf, and I just try to accept there are too many books to read so I don’t keep a list of the ones I don’t have. I rely on serendipity and impulse.

Books I have read are noted in a small document and compiled annually to a dead web forum I only continue to visit for that very purpose. Outside of a handful of books, completed ones are given to interested parties or the thrift shop.

These are my systems: certainly of no use to anyone else.


👤 CrypticShift
Zotero [0] is very good. it:

- is open source and well maintained.

- could be used both online and locally.

- offers both folders and tags for organization.

- could also be used for your pdf-annotation and generic web bookmarking needs.

While browsing sites like amazon and open library, you can capture the current page/book with all its metadata (author,year...) directly to Zotero in one click.

The heavy-weight champion remains Calibre [1]

[0] https://www.zotero.org/support/changelog

[1] https://calibre-ebook.com/


👤 montgomery_r
I have a bookshelf that contains only ‘books I have read this year or have acquired to read’. On New Years day or thereabouts, I photograph them and store them in the correct places on my shelves, and start filling the current year shelf again - often with Christmas presents ( and whatever I hadn’t yet read from last year).

👤 jstx1
Technical books on a kanban board along with all of my other technical learning, nontechnical books in a note called reading list.

👤 ffwacom
In stacked piles next to the bed. They go in boxes if they turn out to be bad, otherwise onto a bookshelf.

👤 simonhfrost
Goodreads.com